


The Five Names of Julie Molina

by chxrrywhine



Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Getting Together, Mild Angst, but very mild, i'm almost Sickened by how soft this is, seriously this is mostly just fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-13
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:06:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,298
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27534238
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chxrrywhine/pseuds/chxrrywhine
Summary: or: the five times luke calls julie a term of endearment and the one time she gives him a taste of his own medicine
Relationships: Julie Molina/Luke Patterson
Comments: 25
Kudos: 359





	The Five Names of Julie Molina

**Author's Note:**

> I honestly did not expect to like this show as much as I did, but here we are!
> 
> Very special thanks to alyssa divineauthors who beta read this for me when I was high on benadryl. any mistakes that remain are 100% my own. go read her fics btw i adore everything she writes no CAP

**i.**

“Julie. _Julie_. Julie Molina. Julie, Julie, Julie, my light, my love, my all, my sun--”

“ _What_ .” Julie slams her textbook shut, but smiles even through her exasperation. Once when he was a boy, Luke’s mom sat on the edge of his bed and told him the story of Icarus when he was sick with the flu. Icarus, the boy who wanted too much. Icarus, the boy who flew too close to the sun. At the time, he’d thought it scary--a cautionary tale, though at the time, he wasn’t sure what he was being cautioned against.

He gets it now, though. Looking at Julie is like flying too close to the sun--almost too bright to bear and just as dangerous too. Just a second too long and she’ll scald you forever. 

Luke flops back on her bed, picking up the _Seventeen!_ magazine lying on the comforter. “So whatcha up to? Working hard?”

“I’m studying,” Julie sighs. “Something you’d know about if you hadn’t eaten a tainted hotdog twenty-five years ago.” She gives him a sassy little smile from her nest of pillows and giggles when Reggie and Alex _ooooh, she burned you, dude_ from somewhere across the room.

He’d almost forgotten they were there. Unfortunate since he’s now been reminded. “Shut up. You guys are dead too.” He flips them off, not like it does any good, and goes back to reading the article on some new boyband or another.

Inevitably, he’s bored again before five minutes are over.

Inevitably, he sets his sights on Julie. 

“Hey. Hey, Julie.”

“Oh my gosh, _what is it Luke_?”

“Let’s make some music. You and me. We could go out to the garage, do some writing, what do you say?”

Over his shoulder Alex snickers. “Oh, dude, was that supposed to be a pick up line?” he asks in a stage whisper.

“Oh, Julie,” Reggie says in a mockingly high voice. “My love, my all, the very air that I breathe, won’t you write some music with me?”

“You guys are fucking annoying,” he snaps, but Julie laughs out loud, a bright, twinkling sound, even as her cheeks have gone red, highlighted with a slight flush that makes him want to press kisses to her warm skin.

Ugh.

Maybe he deserves Alex and Reggie’s mockery. He’s sickening himself at this point.

“So, that’s a no to the music?” he asks quietly when Reggie and Alex have gone back to whatever it is they’re doing.

Julie looks up over the top of her book, still flushed and grinning and happy, and says “Shut up, Luke.”

Her eyes flick back to the textbook, while his eyes remain on her, and Luke Patterson knows to the depths of his soul, to the bottom of his being, that he is deeply and emphatically screwed.

**ii.**

Once when he was fifteen, Luke got high with a few friends under the bleachers at his highschool’s homecoming game. The first few times, he’d choked on the smoke, on the burn, and on his nerves, but by the third inhale, he’d gotten the hang of all of it. The smell of pot seemed to linger in his clothes for days and he’d been grounded, but the high had been worth it.

There’s something about being on stage that feels simultaneously exactly like that, and nothing like that at all. It is a high, to be certain, but not a slow-burning, wafting thing that drifts up to the rafters before it disappears. No, the high of being on stage is like a disease, an infection spreading through him, biting and grabbing at every cell, every neuron firing in his body. Luke feels alive on stage, more alive than he felt even when he’d been all flesh and bone and breath. It feels good, is the long and short of it. Sharing the stage with his boys, sharing these moments with Julie feels good, feels like it’s what he’s made for.

They blink out of existence when the last song ends--a new tune he and Julie worked on until the late hours of the morning a few weeks ago--and reappear in her dressing room right as she comes through the door. They break out into cheers as soon as they see each other again, yelling, and whooping, and slapping each other on the back for no other reason except that they just played out a sold-out, headlining show. For no other reason that they are, in some ways, alive and ready to devour the whole world. And then there is Julie in the center of it, beaming and laughing just as loudly as she can.

She turns to him, eyes wide and excited, and for a moment Luke forgets himself, forgets everything, actually.

He forgets that he’s dead, he forgets that Alex and Reggie are in the room--he forgets everything except this beautiful girl and the beautiful music they make together.

“You freaking killed it tonight, baby!” 

“No.” Julie shakes her head. “ _We_ killed it!”

Luke reaches for her on instinct, his need to touch her obliterating any and every other thought. When his hand goes through her shoulder, it is a bucket of cold water slapping him back to reality. Julie’s smile falters, Alex and Reggie’s too, and--

It’s a funny thing, but for the most part, Luke doesn’t mind being dead. It’s not ideal, and definitely not optimal or fun, but there are worse things to be. Instead of a ghost, he could simply be nothing at all, but he’s not. He gets to do this thing with the people he loves, and though bittersweet, he still gets to see his parents whenever he wants, even if he can’t talk to them. It’s not a bad life. Or half a life, as it were. But in this moment, he has never hated being dead more. He has never hated not being able to touch Julie more than he does at this second. If he had a saw, he’d cut off his hands for all the good they’re doing him right now.

The mood threatens to slip just that quickly, elation turning bitterness like water turning to ice, but Julie doesn’t allow them to sink. Gods either damn her or bless her, she turns her smile up a couple notches and winks at him.

If he had a heart, Luke is certain it would have stopped.

“We killed it tonight,” she says again, and just like that, the mood is back. Alex and Reggie whoop again, loud enough to crack the mirrors (or at least that’s what it feels like) and… it’s not ideal but it's good.

With Julie, everything is always good.

*

Except on the days when they aren't.

*

**iii.**

Luke doesn’t even realize what woke him up until he hears the sound again.

Technically speaking, ghosts don’t need sleep, and even more technically speaking, Luke was caught in a weird limbo world for upwards of twenty-five years, so in theory, sleep should be the last thing on his mind. But he is still, at heart, a teenage boy, and with nothing else to do, he goes to sleep every night for the normalcy and routine of it all. According to his mother, he used to be impossible to rouse in the morning, but these days, waking up is different.

When he was a boy, he had an uncle named Fletcher who’d spent twelve years fighting overseas and every year at Thanksgiving, Uncle Fletcher would fall asleep on the sofa after three big helpings of turkey. Never a light little nap, either; always a deep, sound, snoring kind of sleep--the kind of sleep that would put anyone out until morning, yet every time it was time for Aunt Caroline and Uncle Fletcher to go home, Uncle Fletcher would snap awake the very second he was needed, eyes bright and alert as if he had never been sleep at all.

At the time, Luke neither understood or desired the kind of instincts required to wake up like that, but he gets it now in some ways because as a ghost, his sleep is never peaceful, his restless dreams fading like breath on a window the minute he opens his eyes. All this to say, when he hears the sound again and registers Julie sniffing outside the garage some three-thirty in the morning, there isn’t a moment of confusion or hesitation before he launches up out of bed. There is something terribly, awfully wrong with the thought of Julie crying, and the sight of her grief isn’t that much better.

He finds her sitting outside on the driveway dressed in nothing but her pajamas and a thin sweater. Her face is wet, moonlight reflecting on her damp cheeks, and Luke’s not certain, but he’s pretty sure the void where his beating heart is supposed to be gets a little bit heavier upon looking at her.

“Julie?”

She looks up, startled, and quickly brushes the tears from her face. “Oh. Luke, hey.”

“What are you doing out here? Why don’t you come sit outside? It’s freezing.”

“I didn’t want to wake you guys. Sorry.”

Luke is already shaking his head before the words are even finished leaving her mouth. “No, come on, Julie, it’s fine, just. What are you--why are you crying? Did something happen?”

Her lower lip sets to trembling again. Luke watches as Julie catches it between her lip to keep it still. “No, it's nothing, I just.” She pauses and clears her throat, valiantly tries to steady her voice. She’s so brave sometimes--he’s so in awe of her he’s certain he’s going to explode with pride. “Do you ever have those dreams where everything is perfect and nothing is wrong, and it feels so real that it’s like you can reach out and touch it?” she asks quietly.

He nods, unsure of where this is going.

“I had a dream that my mom was alive. And it was such… it was such a boring dream,” she says with a broken laugh. “We were just sitting at the dinner table, eating and laughing. The doorbell rang. Mom stood up, brushed a hand over my head, and you guys came in, and that was it. But it was the best, most perfect dream I’ve ever had, and I--” Her voice breaks, finally, the tears flowing down her cheeks again.

Luke studiously ignores the fact that Julie’s perfect life still involves them, still involves _him_ , and moves closer to her, as close as he can without going through her. “Sweetheart,” he breathes. Julie puts her face in her hand, shoulders shaking with sobs. His own eyes fill with tears too--both at her grief and his own. He knows those dreams, has had more than a few of them himself, though most of them seem to turn into nightmares. Most of them still end with him running out on his mom, or with her dying, and him being left behind instead. His hands ache to hold her, his arms nothing more than useless boughs on a dead tree, empty and craving to be filled.

Julie says something, voice muffled by her hands.

“What?” He leans in closer. “Sorry, I didn't catch that.”

She raises her face, looks him dead in the eyes, and says, “I wish you were here.”

 _Oh_.

Screw it. Luke reaches for her hand even though he knows he’ll pass right through her, and lets the illusion exist for a moment. “I’m always right here, Julie,” he says earnestly. “I swear.”

She crooks a pinky and holds it up to where his hand should be. “Promise?”

This girl is going to be the death of him. Again. 

He hooks his finger through hers. When he passes through, not being able to touch her doesn’t ache as much as it usually does, because what they have is something that goes beyond skin-deep affection anyway.

“Promise,” he whispers, and means it, with every fiber of his fleeting soul.

(But that’s the thing about promises. Even when one means to keep them, life rarely ever works in their favor that way).

  
  


**iv.**

They play The Orpheum and it is everything Luke thought it would be. It is also nothing like he thought it would be. The stakes are higher this time around. With the crowd in one ear, Julie’s voice in the other, and the aching jolts of pain that send streaks through his body every few minutes, Luke tries his best to savor this moment because they all know it is terribly, painfully bittersweet. They all know that they will have to say goodbye the minute the last chord strums through the air, and it hurts to leave. It hurts to have this treasured, beautiful thing and have to put it on the shelf to collect dust, to leave it and never be able to return to it. Gods, does it hurt, almost more than Caleb’s little shock therapy.

When the song is over, Luke, Reggie, and Alex blink back to the garage, not bothering to move when their legs give out like string and they collapse on the floor. It’s fine, though. It’s… fine. If they can do this for Julie, if they can leave her with the beautiful idea that they’ve crossed over, that’ll be good. That’ll be at least one thing they’ve done right in their lives, and Luke settles in to let the sharp pain of death take him. He’s getting endlessly tired of this crap.

But then Julie comes into the garage, and that is not part of the plan. 

Julie finds them laying there, in pain and agonized, and watching her lose them is the hardest thing Luke has ever done.

 _No, no, no,_ she’s saying. Or begging, is more like it. _What about Caleb, just join his band, that has to be better than just blinking out of existence. Please please please don’t make me watch this, please don’t do this._

She drops to her knees hard on the floor in front of them, imploring them to stand up, to do something, to _fight_. But the fight is long since over for them. Was over twenty-five years ago, really. Everything else is just borrowed time.

Luke heaves his body up, makes himself crawl over to her, and ducks his head so she is forced to look him in the eye.

“Hey, hey, no,” he rasps. “It’s okay. It’s--we got to do everything we dreamed of and more."

“Luke, I--”

“No, no, let me say this.” Another jolt wracks his body and Julie flinches like she’s the one in pain. It won’t be too long now. Luke takes a deep breath and plows on. “Listen to me, Julie. Being here in the future, being with you… that makes it all worth it. You are a goddess, Julie Molina. You’re a hero. You’re _my_ hero, because you saved me, and you saved us, and if this is all the time we get with you, with this band, this dream, then it was worth it. It was all worth it.”

“But it’s not fair,” she whimpers. “None of this is fair. You leaving me, _you_ ”--she points at him specifically, finger wobbling in the air between them--“leaving me is not fair.”

“I know, babe. I know. But I--Julie, meeting you, loving you was one of the greatest joys of my life. And I can say that honestly because I got to play the freaking Orpheum. Loving you, meeting you was one of the best things that ever happened to me, and I hope you remember that. Every time you think about us, every time you think of me, I want you to remember that I loved you, and that I still do and that I always will, even when there’s nothing left of me.”

Maybe it’s a little too much. Maybe it’s a little cheesy. He doesn’t know when this final goodbye became a sanctuary confessional but the words are spilling out before Luke can stop them. And then, with some clarity, he realizes he doesn’t want to stop them. He wants Julie to know this truth; if these words are the last true things to be uttered from his lips he wants them branded on her every cell, on every vein and aorta and ventricle. He wants them coursing through her, as easily as the air she breathes--a simple, infallible, unending thing that exists for her and her alone. 

“Please don’t leave.”

“I don't want to.” he chokes out.

In the end, none of them are even sure what, exactly, does it but when Luke leans forward, allowing himself once last chance to have everything he’s ever wanted, his lips make contact with Julie’s and then they’re kissing. _Actually_ kissing. The pain subsides, Caleb’s tattoo fades, and everything becomes something of a blur after that. But in that moment, it is real. 

In the moment, _Julie Julie Julie_ is the realest thing Luke Patterson has ever fucking touched and he knows right then and there that kissing her, having her, tasting her just once was never going to be enough.

He’s in it now, deeper than deep, and when he pulls back to look at Julie’s face, to see her eyes bright and shining back at him--awed, and hopeful, and terrified--he knows she’s in it just as deep too. 

No going back, always going forward, not stopping to ask permission from life along the way. It’s terrifying, and exciting. It’s everything.

**v.**

“How are we feeling tonight, Madison Square Garden? We feeling good?”

The crowd is loud, one of their loudest shows so far. It's been over a year since they rose to fame and their success will never not be surreal, will never not feel like an abnormal glitch in the matrix. Sometimes it is terrifying to wake up in his own apartment, in his bed, because sometimes Luke swears this is all a limbo-induced hallucination. But then he’ll turn over and Julie will be fast asleep on her side of the bed, and he’ll know it’s real. Because there is no way he could have invented Julie, never in his wildest dreams could he have invented someone so… gorgeous. Gorgeous, in every single way. 

This is real, this is his life, and it is not going away.

“I just want to say thank you to everyone who came out tonight. Thank you for spending your hard earned money on us, we really appreciate it. Before we begin our next song, I just want to take a moment to introduce all the people who made this amazing night possible for you. The sound guys, our crew, everyone at Columbia, we wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t given us a chance, so thank you.” Luke rattles off the list of thanks, and though the words have become routine at this point, he still means every word. He will never stop being grateful for every person, every twist of events, every atom and molecule that made these moments possible. The screams get louder as he introduces first the backup band, then Reggie, and Alex.

Finally, he turns to Julie. She’s flushed and sweating, her hair wild and unruly, and grinning like she is on top of the world.

Gods, he loves her.

“Last but certainly not least,” Luke says into the mic, “Please give it up for my amazing, brilliant, beautiful, and talented girlfriend, Julie Molina!”

The crowd _explodes_ as Julie steps out from behind her keyboard. She takes his outstretched hand, letting him reel her in, and indulgently kisses him back when he kisses her. This had been a surprise when they became famous. The amount of people that loved their relationship had been a shock, but Luke had been more than happy to give the people what they wanted. 

Julie pulls back, nose crinkling with joy and embarrassment, and walks back over to the keyboard, and if he watches her walk away, that’s between him, God, and thousands of people in the crowd.

“Right. I’m Luke Patterson, we have been Julie and The Phantoms. This is _Bright_ , sing along if you know it.”

**\+ 1**

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

Julie snaps her earring into her ear. They’re her mom's, like most of her wardrobe is at this point, but these are special--long, dangling, golden earrings that shimmer in the sun.

“I'm sure, Luke.” It’s the fifth time he has asked in just as many minutes. 

That’s one thing she has learned about Luke over the years--he is a lot more anxious than he lets on. Everything that goes in his head is calculated and recalculated a hundred thousand times until it becomes muddled or terrifying, and she loves him for it, even if she has to repeat herself a couple hundred thousand times.

“But what if something happens?” he asks, nervous. “What if Caleb comes back?”

Impossible. It’s been ten years since Caleb was destroyed completely; he’s not coming back, but Luke doesn’t need logic right now, he needs reassurance, so Julie sets her remaining earring down and turns to face him.

“If Caleb comes back, I’ll find you and Alex and Reggie, and bring you guys home.” she shrugs. “Simple.”

Luke gapes at her. “Wait, really?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.” A beat passes. “But are you really, really, absolutely, positively sure?”

Julie sighs. “I was sure when you asked me six months ago, and I was sure when you asked me six minutes ago. I’m positive, Luke. Really, really, absolutely positive. Do you believe me?”

“Yes,” he says without hesitating, almost offended that she even has to ask. “Of course I do.”

“Okay then.” She turns back to her vanity and clasps her other earring into place.

Behind her, Luke gives a low whistle as he looks her up and down, slowly shaking his head. “You look amazing, you know that?”

“You don’t look too bad yourself.”

He gives her a _look_ , one Julie has seen a thousand times, a look that tells her exactly what he wants to do with her and that pretty dress she’s got hugging all her dips and curves, but then the door opens and Flynn stomps in.

“Seriously?” she demands, hands on her hips. She points at Luke. “Okay, Reggie and Alex have been looking for you for like, twenty minutes. They’re kind of freaking out, thinking you went all Caspar the Ghost on them again, so maybe you should sort that out."

Luke cringes. “Oops,” he says, but Flynn barrels on. She turns on her heel and points at Julie.

“And _you_.”

“Me? What did I do?”

“Don’t you know it’s bad luck for the groom to see the bride before the wedding? I swear I have to do everything myself around here.” She rolls her eyes and leads Luke to the door with a loving but firm grasp on his shoulders. “She’ll see you in, like, twenty minutes, lover boy. I’m sure you can wait."

“Ehh,” Julie says at the same time Luke says, “I’m not actually sure I can wait that long.”

It’s clear they’re giving Flynn a migraine by the way she rubs her temples. She rolls her eyes again, though she’s smiling, and says, “You guys don't pay me enough for this.” She swings open the hotel door and gestures to the hallway. “Out, Luke. Everyone is waiting for you in the garden.”

“Fine, fine.” Luke puts his hands up in surrender. “See you both downstairs?”

Julie catches his gaze in the mirror, and in those eyes, there are multitudes: words, and memories, and lyrics, and sonnets, and arguments, and trials, and triumphs. In those eyes are the last twelve years of their lives, by each other’s side through every impossible step. _See you downstairs_ , he asks, like there is anywhere else she would rather be.

Julie nods once and smiles--a small, intimate thing just for him. “See you downstairs, husband.”

The word lands exactly the way she wants it to; a promise just for the two of them before they crack it open for anyone else. Luke’s eyes glisten with unshed tears. He presses his lips together and takes a moment to collect himself before he nods and clears his throat. “See you downstairs.”

With one last smile, Luke is out the door. Moments later, his voice rings through the open window, mixing with Reggie and Alex’s, their laughter already so loud it’s clear Reggie has probably been hitting the alcohol early. In the garden below, Julie can hear her dad’s voice, wrangling everyone together for a group photo, and in the mirror, Flynn smiles at her, just as delicate and gentle as the dahlias in Julie's hands. This is a good life she lives. Not one without its struggles and strains, but good all the same. Julie thinks about all the moments that lead her to this: her mom dying, deciding to move, and somehow ending up here, and though Julie expects to feel sad at the thought of her mom, she just feels grateful. Grateful because she knows somewhere, on the other side of this mortal plane, her mom is watching her, is with her even now as she begins to take this next step. So when Julie takes a deep breath, she is not nervous or afraid, only filled with a vibrant certainty that this is her life, this is what she wants, and this feeling, this hope, this love is something she will carry with her now until forever.

With careful touches, she weaves the stem of the dahlia through her hair and takes a step outside the hotel room, into the future and whatever else it might bring.

**-FIN.**

**Author's Note:**

> come talk julie and the phantoms with me @chxrrywhine on twitter !


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